Reality Bites -- Nomi Prins Tells It Straight

Funny.

Jeebus.

Fore!

Trump’s Bait and Switch 
How to Swamp Washington and Double-cross Your Supporters Big Time
By Nomi Prins

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176219/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_the_march_of_the_billionaires/#more

I'll excerpt a few pertinent graphs from it, but please read the whole thing.

First of all, Nomi Prins is a well known and respected writer on matters of politics and economics. She has the requisite Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs background to know the real deal about the finance sector. She is somewhat of the leftish persuasion, but in our political realm, that's not really leftist at all. There is no left to speak of in US politics or economics, it's all rightist and it is more and more reactionary all the time.

Prins is telling the truth here, and the truth is kryptonite to Trump and his followers.

They can't stand it.

So what is the truth here? Let's go through some of her points, one by one.

Trump’s version of a political and financial establishment, just forming, will be bound together by certain behavioral patterns born of relationships among those of similar status, background, social position, legacy connections, and an assumed allegiance to a dogma of self-aggrandizement that overshadows everything else. In the realm of politico-financial power and in Trump’s experience and ideology, the one with the most toys always wins. So it’s hardly a surprise that his money- and power-centric cabinet won’t be focused on public service or patriotism or civic duty, but on the consolidation of corporate and private gain at the expense of the citizenry. 

The signs have been plain since the campaign, of course, but as the Gold Plated Great Man fills his cabinet and appoints loyalists and cronies to other positions of import in the coming Regime, literally daring anyone to do anything about it, there is no sign of public service or public interest in the choices and their life's work at all, any more than there is any sign of patriotism or civic duty in Trump's background.  It just doesn't exist. There is every sign of consolidation of (favored) corporate and private gain at the total expense of the citizenry.

It’s already obvious that, to Trump, “draining the swamp” means filling it with new layers of golden sludge...

Gee, ya think?

The rarified world of his cabinet choices is certainly a universe away from the struggling working class folks he bamboozled with promises of bringing back American “greatness.”

Let's call a con a con and be done with it.

His attacks on working people via his appointments and his Twitter machine should have been a wake-up call to his working class followers, but in the Trumpiverse, every attack is deserved. The people, institutions and companies he goes after deserve it because they are disloyal or disobedient or both. For them, no quarter. Regardless of anything else.

what is guaranteed to be an abyss of inequality and instability.

Precisely. This is what some of us have been warning of. Strangely, now that these warnings are being listened to, known of, and worried over outside the Cassandra Class, the opportunities for action become more and more limited. It doesn't mean that nothing can be done, just that what can be done about it is shrinking.

Of course for disaster capitalists, an "abyss of inequality and instability" is perfect. Let's not forget that, either.

There follow details of the Harding-esque nature of the coming Trump Regime a detailed examination of the important players in the New America being set up.

Finally, wrapping up, Prins notes that

His new incarnation of the old establishment largely consists of billionaires and multimillionaires with less than appetizing nicknames from their previous predatory careers. They favor government support for their private gain as well as deregulation, several of them having already specialized in making money off the collateral damage from such policies....

Trump is now surrounding himself with a crew of crony capitalists who understand boardroom speak, but have nothing in common with most Americans.  So give him credit: his administration is already one of the great political bait-and-switch productions in our history and it hasn’t even begun.  Count on one thing: in his presidency he’ll only double down on that “promise.”

Well, yes. Wasn't it obvious?

For some of his followers, it was. And they hope to profit on their insight and loyalty. Others may not have seen the thieves picking their pockets as they joyously shouted "Lock her up!" or whatever, and don't see them now. Little or nothing can persuade them that they've been conned and will be fleeced of what little remains of their pelf.

They're not the only victims, of course. Everyone who can be will be relieved of everything the grubbing con artists can get their hands on. That's baked in. Anyone who tries to protect and preserve any shred of their former lives will easily become a target. That's how these things work.

Some of Trump's loyalists are eager for that outcome, looking forward to how they might profit from the ascension of His Gold Plated Self. The opportunities are immense. The victims deserve their fate.

Trouble is, they don't recognize that even the strongest loyalists can wind up in the victim basket. Or if they do recognize it, they think they will escape. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge and understanding of history,  maybe it's contrariness and pigheaded self absorption, I don't know. But their illusion of safety under the circumstances is false.